Penn Township will be getting a Pennsylvania Turnpike interchange as the commission overseeing the highway has been relieved of a multimillion-dollar annual obligation to PennDOT, officials announced Thursday.
It remains unclear when work on the $30 million connection at Route 130 might start, but it won’t be completed sooner than 2026, according to a commission spokeswoman.
The move is being made possible by the end of a $450 million annual payment the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission was required to make to PennDOT under Act 44 that started in 2007. Next year, the payment drops to $50 million. Township commissioner Chuck Konkus said the interchange will help the community’s tax base shift from residential to commercial through anticipated business development, giving homeowners a breather.
“For me, it’s exciting for the opportunity … to allow the commercial development, business to develop here in the township,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, said the project has been in discussions for 15 years but started gaining traction in 2019. She made the announcement Thursday with commission and local officials and said afterward that the payment drop for the commission will allow them to do more projects.
“This is something lasting,” she said, adding that it will entice businesses to move to the township.
The Turnpike Commission voted in July 2019 to allocate the funding to build the cashless interchange. It was added to the agency’s 10-year capital plan. A year earlier, Jeannette, Manor, Murrysville and Penn Township officials passed resolutions supporting the project.
The turnpike passes through Penn Township but does not offer motorists a way to enter or exit. A 2017 study showed the ramps would bring an estimated 8,000 additional vehicles a day to Route 130, requiring it to be widened and improved at an additional cost of $38 million.
Township Commissioner Jeff Shula said the interchange would improve mobility and the economic viability of the municipality.
“We cannot grow unless we can quickly and efficiently move goods to market and employees to work,” he said in the announcement.
Act 44 required the Turnpike Commission to pay PennDOT annually to fund a variety of projects, including road improvement, public transit and accessibility for the disabled. With those $450 million payments now set to decrease, commission CEO Mark Compton said it can focus on improving the highway in ways that will encourage economic development.
Planning is underway, but Pennsylvania Turnpike Chief Engineer Brad Heigel said the interchange’s completion depends on a shift in how tolls are collected. The western section of the turnpike will be converted to open-road tolling in 2026, he said. The completion of the Route 130 interchange will depend on that conversion.
That type of toll collection, which is less expensive, moves away from the booths on interchanges to fixed sites above turnpike travel lanes, using electronic transponders, he said. The turnpike in 2020 moved to all-electronic tolling, eliminating the need for workers at the toll booths.
